QBCPerdition

"If we don't get out of here, we're going to die!" Ryland yelled, but everyone just stared at him. He scrambled to his feet and staggered over by Jack and the professor guy, Ed something he was sure his name was. "You knew about this didn't you!" By the time Ryland made it to them and grabbed onto Jack's collar, the pilot and the rest of the council were there. He swung on the pilot and punched him in the face. "You must have seen it! You know we're gonna die! That's why you haven't even tried to get us home!" The pilot jumped up from the floor where Ryland's hit had flung him and threw himself back at Ryland. Just before his hands coul

 "Yes, um, well," he started, then cleared his throat. "I think we may have crashed a bit farther from home than we thought. About 250 million years farther." Ed took a peculiar joy in being so dramatic. Very rarely had he been in a position to deliver a news flash like this. He felt rather like the newscasters who covered the Hindenburg crash, JFK's shooting, the moon landing, and the discovery of actual life on Mars. He figured the shock of just where they were hadn't sunk in yet, and the bump he'd taken on his head during the crash may have had something to do with that. And that was a Lystrosaurus, a real live one. This was better than

“This is Earth Orbital Control to transport ship 7432.” “Go ahead EOC, this is transport ship 7432.” “Begin final approach, drop your speed to half, and prepare to disengage from your main engines in 5 minutes.” “Roger, EOC. Beginning final approach, speed to half, and preparing to disengage from main engines in 5 minutes.” Back in the cabin, a flight attendant stood up in front of the passengers right as a light flashed on with a little ding. “The Captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please, everyone, sit up straight, secure all loose objects, and if needed, help the passenger to yo

 Snow. A suffocating blanket of blankness. Featureless and cold…damn cold. And dark. Even when the sun is up, it’s never really up. Clouds, haze, and obtuse angles make it impossible. The darkness seems to intrude, over-power, subsume, and finally, control you. You are no longer yourself, you are the darkness, and cold, and bleak nothingness of winter. Poets claim snow is like a blank slate, a winter wonderland of beauty and shining diamond-like snowflakes falling on two lovers walking in a park, with Christmas lights on every tree and a cup of cocoa in every house. They know nothing of true winter. Even the trees know the lie, all

The silence surrounds me like a tomb, my things arranged around me like the treasure interred with Egyptian mummies, standing quiet sentinel to my restless night. The heat is bad enough, but the humidity is the real killer. It gets so bad that you can't tell if your skin is slick from the air or your own sweat. Another example of imperfection in the human design, sweating only makes things worse when the air can't even hold onto the moisture it has, like a naïve, idealistic addict on his first trip to Vegas, his money burning a hole in his pocket, and I'm the unwilling house, raking in the moisture hand over fist…and under arm and chest and b

The glow from the 78" TV flickered across their faces as they flipped the channels. "Today, for the low, low price of-" "-four dead people in-" "-a smooth circular motion-" -"you have to see to believe!"     "Turn it back to the Wolf," Patrick's mother, Annette, said. Her waxen features turned a deathly shade of blue in the warm glow as her husband, Peter, complied, changing it back to the 24-hour news feed.     "Tonight! Breaking! Pollution and air-borne viruses have gotten worse, now only 10 minutes is enough to kill you! What YOU need to know to keep you and your children SAFE! But first, how do you make the perfect ice cream sunda

Clouds crawl across the sky. Days like this should never die. They do. It makes me cry. From my bed, I see it all. I see dusk fall, throwing shadows against the wall. These bars aren't real. These wounds won't heal. I'm trapped here of my own accord. These thoughts of mine can't be ignored. I stare for hours at the floor. I pound the door. I don't want to think any more. I slip back into bed. A crazy thought enters my head: "What if I'm dead?" I grab my ears, twist my head and squeeze out tears. How many more years? These bars aren't real. These wounds won't heal. I'm trapped here of my own accord. These thoughts of mine

The rain flashes overhead in the lightning. I'm sick of the wet. I'm sick of the fighting. Lieutenant yells         "Drop!" I inhale mud. The jungle explodes, pieces of light fly all around me. The clouds break apart, the moon struggles through. The stars look beautiful.